Tips for learning to love the fish?>

[CountDuckula]

I was home sick the past few days, and occupied my time playing a bunch of freerolls (I didn't think my mental state was such that I should risk real money), trying to apply the lessons I've been learning from Harrington on Hold'Em (both volumes). As the suckouts kept coming, I started to find them just plain funny, and started to gain a better understanding of what was going on when they were coming later on in the tourney. Never did place ITM, but I came pretty close at times. [img]/images/graemlins/smile.gif[/img]

Anyway, I think when you see enough of them, you start to accept them as part of the game, and try to figure out how to take advantage of them.

On a semi-related topic, I heard a comment from Annie Duke (interview at WPT Aruba the other night) that hit me like a ton of bricks. She said, "If you don't get your hand caught in the cookie jar a few times, you're not playing good poker." I'd been priding myself on my tight play and wondering why I wasn't doing better. I knew intellectually that I was supposed to do some bluffing, but when I heard that, I realized that failing to steal blinds was a huge leak in my game (I wasn't doing it nearly enough), and once the light went on, I started to try out moves. And sometimes, I'd get caught bluffing or semi-bluffing, and lay the bad beat on someone else. I was the proud recipient of a "bad form" comment when I pushed (somewhere in the middle of a tourney) with a flush draw on the flop, got called, and ended up catching a runner-runner straight with my bottom card (IIRC, I was holding J[img]/images/graemlins/spade.gif[/img]5[img]/images/graemlins/spade.gif[/img]). I didn't enlighten him, but between the probability that he'd fold and the probability that I'd hit my draw (and, presumably, win with it; I realized that if I happened to be up against a higher flush draw, I'd be in trouble), I had good reason to do what I did. I just happened to hit a draw I didn't even see. [img]/images/graemlins/smile.gif[/img]

-Mike